De-bunking Fundraising Myths – Part 8 (of 12)

We’ve all heard myths about fundraising. These often lead us to do the exact opposite of what we should be doing to raise money. We’ll be running a twelve part series de-bunking fundraising myths to take a close look at these false assumptions about giving.

This is the eighth in the series and we will run one each month (if you can’t wait to a year to read all of them you can purchase the book Beyond Fundraising: A Complete Guide to Congregational Stewardship and read them in Chapter 1: The Spiritual Roots of Stewardship). Do we want to paint a picture of our congregation as a sinking ship?

As always, we encourage you to leave comments.

Fundraising Myth #8

Myth: If people only understood the dire financial straits of the church, they would feel guilty and increase their annual financial commitment.

Truth: In spite of Garrison Keillor’s notion that “guilt is the gift that keeps on giving,” nobody wants to throw money at a sinking ship. Emphasizing a financial problem may actually drive people away from the faith community. It is more effective to focus on the positive ways that annual contributions will be used once the money has been received. Have a discussion about the successes of current giving. Talk about how much money is being used and emphasize how much better the programs and ministries will be when the giving is increased. Again, people want to know what difference their financial contribution will make.